Research Highlights

New Article

Microwaves Solve Protein Research Limits
by Grace Vanier, PhD
Genetic Engineering News
June 1, 2010


New Paper

Efficient inhibition of miR-155 function in vivo by peptide nucleic acids
Martin M. Fabani, et al.
Nucleic Acids Research Advance Access published online on March 11, 2010


Microwave Synthesis of PNA

Peptide nucleic acid (PNA) is a DNA mimic with an uncharged, pseudopeptide backbone.  PNA oligomers form very stable duplex structures with Watson-Crick complementary base pairing with DNA (or RNA) oligomers, and PNA’s also have high chemical and metabolic stability.  PNA oligomers have potential applications in antisense diagnostics and therapeutic areas.  Fabani et al. (doi:10.1093.nar.gkq160) developed a method to synthesize PNA oligomers using microwave irradiation to accelerate the synthesis as well as increase the yield and purity, and the synthetic PNA were evaluated for specificity and efficiency.

CEM’s microwave technology is changing the way scientists are performing peptide synthesis and sample preparation for proteomics applications and amino acid analysis.

The low frequency energy of microwave irradiation will:

• Increase yields of difficult chemistries
• Increase purity profiles and selectivity
• Significantly decrease reaction times
• Access results that cannot be achieved with conventional methods

Applications:

	Peptide Synthesis
	Protein Characterization